Kess's Tainted Consultation | Primer
Commander / EDH Competitive Control Infinite Combo Midrange Primer UBR (Grixis)
Land (30)
- 1x Ancient Tomb
- 1x Arid Mesa
- 1x Badlands
-
1x
Blood Crypt
- 1x Bloodstained Mire
- 1x Cephalid Coliseum
- 1x City of Brass
- 1x Command Tower
- 1x Exotic Orchard
- 1x Fiery Islet
- 1x Flooded Strand
- 1x Island
- 1x Mana Confluence
- 1x Marsh Flats
- 1x Misty Rainforest
- 1x Morphic Pool
- 1x Polluted Delta
- 1x Scalding Tarn
- 1x Shivan Reef
-
1x
Snow-Covered Island
- 1x Steam Vents
- 1x Sulfurous Springs
- 1x Sunken Ruins
- 1x Swamp
- 1x Underground River
- 1x Underground Sea
- 1x Verdant Catacombs
- 1x Volcanic Island
- 1x Watery Grave
- 1x Wooded Foothills
Creature (6)
Instant (29)
- 1x Brain Freeze
- 1x Brainstorm
- 1x Chain of Vapor
- 1x Cyclonic Rift
- 1x Delay
- 1x Demonic Consultation
- 1x Dispel
- 1x Flusterstorm
-
1x
Force of Negation
- 1x Force of Will
-
1x
Into the Roil
- 1x Intuition
- 1x Lim-Dul's Vault
- 1x Mana Drain
- 1x Mental Misstep
- 1x Mystical Tutor
- 1x Narset's Reversal
- 1x Negate
- 1x Opt
- 1x Pact of Negation
- 1x Pyroblast
- 1x Red Elemental Blast
-
1x
Shadow of Doubt
- 1x Spell Pierce
- 1x Swan Song
- 1x Tainted Pact
- 1x Thought Scour
- 1x Trickbind
- 1x Vampiric Tutor
Enchantment (5)
Planeswalker (3)
Commander (1)
Sorcery (13)
- 1x Demonic Tutor
- 1x Gitaxian Probe
-
1x
Imperial Seal
- 1x Ponder
- 1x Praetor's Grasp
- 1x Preordain
- 1x Pyroclasm
-
1x
Reanimate
- 1x Timetwister
- 1x Toxic Deluge
- 1x Wheel of Fortune
- 1x Windfall
- 1x Yawgmoth's Will
Artifact (13)
Introduction
I'm the guy who loves playing decks that aren't that popular and will spends thousands of dollars refining them until I deem them complete, yes I am that type of person. I been introduced to Magic the Gathering back in middle school in the year of 2003, the block that I started in was the Kamigawa block and I found it very interesting. During that time I played a constructed deck on and off and eventually life happened and I stopped playing, flash forward almost exactly ten years later and I joined an anime/otaku club. Here I met people playing MTG and I also started getting back into it. Currently I am an avid competitive EDH player who has a tendency to play combo/control decks, I absolutely hate to lose but I enjoy a great match. I've been known in my group as always being threatening and able to win out of the blue so they love to make my life hard and deny me all of my resources, as you will see the reason a lot of my decks are built to win either with flair or questionable commanders. Now enough about me, go read further below that's what you actually came here for!
Kess had a long and interesting change from where it is today. Originally this deck was my Crosis, the Purger deck back in 2013, it was built to disrupt everyone's hands and take damage from cards like Megrim and Underworld Dreams. To be frank it was essentially a Nekusar-esque type of build which focused on wheeling everyone's hand for fun, I enjoyed the deck a fair bit. After my deck dismantlement back in 2016, I rebuilt Crosis into a weird 8-Rack type of deck and trying to see the viability it could do in EDH. That. Was. The. Worst. Decision. I. Made. Long story short, that deck was scrapped a month later and deemed unplayable. Now it moved on to a whole new type of deck idea that I wanted to play with, and that was Doomsday. After playing with Crosis for the duration of that time, there was a point that since I completed my goal of making all my dragons into decent competitive decks. Here is now Kess, Dissident Mage. Swapping the commander of the deck to a true commander makes a whole new world of difference. As of now the current iteration of this Kess is a control/combo deck, it excels at mid-game but has the approach to win as soon as turn three. I welcome you to Kess's Tainted Consultation!
Deck Breakdown
- Kess's main ability allows us to give "flashback" to any of our instant or sorcery in our graveyard once per turn. That by itself is a huge advantage in a spell based deck.
- Costing only for a 3/4 body as well as giving evasion in the form of Flying is a huge boon to us. This means she dodges a lot of bolt removal as well as being a decent defender for yourself as well.
- Having access to the Grixis color pie means that we have the tutoring power, the control, as well as the disruption to gain advantage over our opponents.
Dark Confidant: Premiere Card Advantage (CA) engine. Little to know no downside as our curve if fairly low so at most we will be taking an extra 1-3 damage per turn, completely worth for that additional card draw.
Laboratory Maniac: Our win con.
Notion Thief: One our alternative ways to win. Resolving a Windfall or Wheel of Fortune with Notion Thief on the board usually ends the game as well.
Cursed Totem: Since we don't run any creatures that requires activated abilities, this is pure asymmetrical value for us. Stops most threats ex. Thrasios, Triton Hero, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Nomads en-Kor, etc.
Isochron Scepter: Our alternative win con in the event Labman is unavailable to us. Can lead to also other avenues of winning when paired with certain cards.
Sensei's Divining Top: Top deck manipulation at it's finest. Gives us the controlled draw and filtering for a small investment of only . An all star in most decks.
Copy Artifact: Versatile card, can copy artifacts to further our game plan or be used as an alternative wincon with Isochron Scepter.
Mystic Remora: Splendid CA engine. If we draw even one card from the turn we cast it, we already net back our value.
Necropotence: The most potent form of CA engine we have available to us in Grixis colors.
Rhystic Study: Minor tax effect for your opponents, slows them down or gains us advantage. Pure asymmetrical value. No reason not to include in any blue deck.
Ad Nauseam: Our bread and butter draw spell. Resolving an Ad Naus generally means we can win the game. If not, it gives us an insurmountable advantage to let us win the turn after.
Brainstorm: Staple card draw and manipulation. Well costed for what it does.
Cabal Ritual: Ritual that gives us more mana when we hit threshold, easily achieved with the amount of spells we sling.
Chain of Vapor: Good for us to save our pieces or as well as bouncing an annoying card an opponent has.
Cyclonic Rift: Staple card, an overloaded Rift can definitely set back people a couple turns or more.
Dark Ritual: Standard black ritual, can allow us to do some stupid early game plays. Like a T1/T2 Ad nauseam.
Demonic Consultation: Our namesake card. Wins us the game.
Dramatic Reversal: Variety of uses. Mainly paired with Isochron Scepter to lead into infinite mana. A back up win condition as well.
Entomb: Tech card that is pretty much a tutor for Kess to flashback any spell.
Fire Covenant: One of the greatest tech cards that not much people hear of. A asymmetrical Toxic Deluge at instant speed.
Frantic Search: Instant speed looting that untaps lands? Yes please.
Impulse: Well costed dig that goes four cards deep.
Intuition: MVP card in the deck, can lead to game winning piles. Or protection piles. Super versatile.
Lim-Dul's Vault: Great card for our set up and that dig to win.
Mission Briefing: For the mid-range build. Another way to also flashback win with Demonic Consultation or Tainted Pact in the area where Kess also isn't available.
Mystical Tutor: No reason not to include, we are a spell slinger deck so it makes sense.
Rebuild: Mostly used to get rid of those stax artifact pieces. Our artifacts are low costed so we don't really care for ourselves. If worried about a single player, swap to Hurkyl's Recall.
Shadow of Doubt: Meta call card for Hulk decks and all the tutoring.
Tainted Pact: Our namesake card. Wins us the game.
Vampiric Tutor: Any card for a . Too valuable not to use.
Dark Petition: Budget Imperial Seal replacement. Doubles essentially as a Demonic Tutor since we can hit spell mastery easily. Hurts our Ad nauseam flip though.
Demonic Tutor: Classic tutor. No need to explain why we run this.
Faithless Looting: Looting that can flashback itself when we don't have access to Kess. Great at any point of the game to dig deeper.
Gamble: Essentially pure value for us as we can used the pitched card eventually.
Gitaxian Probe: The peek helps a lot to verify threats and who to be aware of.
Merchant Scroll: Most of the time used to grab protection on combo turns.
Ponder: Efficiently costed card draw.
Preordain: Same as above with the addition of scrying as well.
Reanimate: Used for piles with Intuition or for value. You see that Jin-Gitaxias that's mine now :P
Rolling Earthquake: A board wipe for all the dorks, can also kill people as well. Doubles as another way to win.
Toxic Deluge: Boardwipe that dodges, Gaddock Teeg. Useful at most point of the game.
Vandalblast: Hits either a good artifact or all artifacts you don't control. Great because of variance. If looking for more value, By Force is a great alternative.
Wheel of Fortune: Great grave filler, Card refill, as well as disruption.
Windfall: Same as above.
Yawgmoth's Will: An enabler that allows for an absurd amount of stupid value plays.
Cephalid Coliseum: A way to filter cards or used for Labman win.
Main strengths include:
- Resiliency to most hate on the format, we dodge cards like Aven Mindcensor and Stranglehold when we go for our win con.
- Quality of the cards we run is the best of the best. At optimal casting cost we are able to do a plethora of spells during each turn. Each card has their use and rarely do they not matter.
- Reusability of cards already casted. We get double value for cards in our graveyard, Kess allows us to gain far more advantage.
- Protection on our combos. We are predominantly a control/combo deck, there is a high amount of control to protect our combos.
Main weaknesses include:
- Stax that are akin to Rule of Law or Null Rod/Stony Silence. We run a lot of mana rocks to accelerate our game plans. When we aren't able to extend our advantage we lose a lot of value.
- Exiling Labman can seriously mess us up. There is a chance that Labman will be exiled when we cast Demonic Consulation in our top six cards.
- Ad Nauseam based deck. More often than not, people will hit you to lower the amount of value you can draw from Ad Naus. Often feel a lot of pressure from opponents.
Deck Piloting
An optimal hand will look something akin to this:
- 2-3 Lands
- 1-2 Interaction Spells
- 1-2 Mana Rocks
- 1-2 Tutor or Card Advantage (CA) engine/spells
Your opening hand is definitely variable, and the best thing about Kess is that a majority of hands are keep able. What you are looking for most times is the consistent land drop in the early game with a lot of CA to dig further. You want a hand for an early Kess, and preferably a tutor.
The main goal of this deck is to win with Laboratory Maniac. We have a couple of alternative ways to win in the conclusion that we aren't able to play Labman. Listed below is the ways we can win.
As part of our namesake, this is our most mana effiecient line to win. All we have to do is cast one of those two spells. If Labman is already on the field, just call a card you don't own and deck yourself out, use a cantrip of your choice and win. If Labman is not in your hand, consult for it and pray it isn't in your top six to grab it, than cast it and than use Kess's ability to recast it from the grave. Same as before use a cantrip of your choice to win. With Tainted Pact it's easier as you don't have to bank on it not being exiled on the top six and just go straight for the win.
With Isochron Scepter we have actually a couple ways to win this way. Once we assemble the pieces and have mana rocks producing at least mana, we can proceed to infinite mana. With infinite mana we can do one of the following:
- Sensei's Divining Top - Allows us to draw our entire library and win with Labman.
- Copy Artifact + Swan Song - Create an infinite army of 2/2 flyers.
- Rolling Earthquake - Kill the whole table, most of the time this includes yourself :P
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Casual
95% Competitive
Revision 38 See all
(3 years ago)
| +1 | Baral, Chief of Compliance | main |
| -1 | Dark Ritual | main |
| +1 | Into the Roil | main |
| -1 | Laboratory Maniac | main |
| -1 | Mystic Sanctuary | main |
| +1 | Narset's Reversal | main |
| +1 | Reanimate | main |
| -1 | Rolling Earthquake | main |
| -1 | Stifle | main |
| +1 | Sunken Ruins | main |
| +1 | Trickbind | main |
| -1 | Unearth | main |
| Top Ranked |
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| Date added | 5 years |
| Last updated | 3 years |
| Legality | This deck is Commander / EDH legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 4 - 0 Mythic Rares 55 - 0 Rares 21 - 0 Uncommons 17 - 0 Commons |
| Cards | 100 |
| Avg. CMC | 1.83 |
| Tokens | Bird 2/2 U, Treasure |
| Folders | Active EDH Decks, edh, Competitive decks, Commander ideas, cEDH, Commander, Fancy pictures, Kess, Dissident Mage decks, edh, fave decks |
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